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BEFORK THK 



WHIG AND CONSERVATIVE CITIZENS 



OF SCHENECTADY COUNTY, 



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DECEMBER 30th, 1839. 



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B¥ JOHN 8. VAN RENSSEI^AER, E:S4|. 

• of Albany. 



SCHENECTADY: 

RIGGS & NORRIS, PRINTERS, No. 23, UNION-STERET. 

1840. 




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SCHKNKCTADY, DeC. 31, 1839. 

John S. Van Rensselaer, Esq. 

Esteemed Sir — We the undersigned, a conimiltee of Whig and Conservative 
citizens, from among those who listened with deep gratification to your interesting 
Address, at Union Hall, last evening — solicit from you a copy of the same for pub- 
lication, under the impression that its valuable data and principles, if thrown before 
the public, may be the means of accomplishing permanent good to the cause of free- 
dom, with which Harrison and Tyler are intimately identified. 
From yours, very respectfully, 

DANL. J. TOLL. 
WM. McCAMUS, 
' JAMES FROST, 

STEPHEN H. JOHNSON, 
T. L. THOMPSON. 
JOHN LASSELLS, 
JOHN BROTHERSON, 
LEVI SABIN, 
H. C. VAN VORST, 
JOHN SANDERS. 

Albany, Jan. 3d, 1840. 

Gentlemen — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your very unexpect- 
ed and complimentary note of the 31st ult. 

I would have complied with its request at an earlier period, if my remarks to the 
liighly respectable meeting of the Whigs and Conservatives of the city of Schenec- 
tady, had been reduced to writing in any other shupe, than the mere heads of what 
I intended to say. 

Enclosed is, in substance, a copy of the address I made, which I place at your 
disposal, to publish or withhold, as you may judge best calculated to aid the cause 
of freedom, and reach the end we aim at, the defeat of bad measures and unworthy 
rulers. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

JOHN S. VAN RENSSELAER. 

To Messrs. Danl. J. Toll, Win. McCamus, James Frost, Stephen H. Johnson. 
T. L. Thompson, John LasscUs, John Brotjierson, Levi Sabiii, H. C. Van Vorsl, 
John Sanders, Schenectady. 



ADDRESS. 



1 obey your call, gentlemen, not to make a set speech, but to unite 
with you in assenting to the nomination of William Henry Har- 
rison, for President, and John T"iLER, for Vice-President ; and to 
pledge myself to support the nomination to the utmost of my power 
and ability. The first of the nominees is a citizen of the State of Ohio, 
distinguished as an enlightened and patriotic statesman ; an incorrupti- 
ble man and high souled well tried soldier. The other is a favorite 
son of the ancient dominion, equally fit to be President, and only infe- 
rior to Gen. Harrison, in the degree and magnitude of his public services. 

The nomination of such candidates, was worthy of the high minded 
and patriotic men, who formed a large majority of the delegates to the 
National Convention at Harrisburgh; they were emphatically the con- 
script fathers of the republic ; time worn, honored for their public 
^services — wise and single hearted ; they had assembled to determine 
how best they might serve the cause of a much injured country, and 
effectually snatch the reins of government from the polluted hands of 
spoilsmen and demagogues, who had driven rough shod over a betrayed 
■and suffering people ; honest in their intentions and wise in their con- 
'clusions — such men could make no mistake in the candidates presented by 
them to the nation. Accordingly the nominees of that convention have 
teen received with enthusiasm and entire unanimity, by the Whigs and 
■Conservatives of the Union ; and I predict, gentlemen, that they will be 
-elected by a majority so great, as to astonish alike friends and foes. 

By no citizens, is the nomination of Gen. Harrison more warmly 
supported, than by the friends of Gen. Scott in this state ; it is known 
to many of you, and it was well understood at Harrisburgh, that several 
of the State officers at Albany, through their friends, zealously pressed 
on the Convention the nomination of Gen. Scott as the most available 
candidate, and persevered until success was hopeless. The delegates 
from this state, friendly to the nomination of Gen. Scott, then threw 



6 

their ballots for Gen. Harrison and decided the question. So far they 
have fairly sustained the nomination, and set a magnanimous example 
of devotion to the great cause of the people, worthy of all praise, and 
which cannot fail to produce the happiest results. 

The friends of Henry Clay in the Convention, adhered to him to the 
last ballot, with a perseverance befitting their warm hearts and his great 
name ; and when a majority declared for Wm. Henry Harrison, and 
Mr. Clay's letter to his Kentucky friends was read, the magnanimity 
of soul displayed by those friends, the burning zeal, the unfeigned 
crrief, and the devoted love exhibited by them in, the outpourings of 
their glowing and impassioned eloquence, when they yielded Kentucky's 
favorite son to the will of the majority, to promote Union for the sake 
of the Union, surpass my power of description, and were worthy of 
the brightest and purest days of the republic. I esteem it, gentlemen, 
one of the happiests events of my life, that I was permitted to be present 
at the deliberations of the convention from the commencement to the 
end ; but the thrilling scene of the last day, v/as an exhibition of self- 
devotion, patriotic feeling and stirring oratory, that had no parallel in 
the proceedings of any deliberative assembly I ever attended, and 
would embellish the brightest pages ever written by Milton and 
Hume. I returned from Harrisburgh more fixed in Republican prin- 
ciples than when I went, and more convinced of the permanency of 
our free institutions ; that a nation which could produce on such an oc- 
casion, so many wise heads and honest hearts, contained within it the 
elements of restorative vitality, that would secure its existence for cen- 
turies ; and as our origin and growth as a nation, may be regarded a 
series of miracles, betokening a special interposition of Providence in 
our behalf, so the evils we are now enduring, will, I firmly believe, be 
directed for our good ; and from the hour the Pilgrim Fathers first set 
foot in America, at Plymouth, it was registered in the records of time 
kept in eternity, that from an insignificant and helpless infancy, this 
people should grow and wax strong for ages to come, until in the ful- 
ness of time they shall have attained the gigantic stature of a colossal 
nation ; which, at some period in the far future, worn out with the 
wear and tare of twenty centuries, will run into decay and dissolve into 
its constituent elements ; to form new combinations and assume new- 
forms adapted to the wants and conditipn of its people. 

I will not, gentlemen, detain this meeting with a detailed account of 



the life and services of William Henry Harrison, they are to be found 
on the most interesting pages 'of 'thfe history of the country. It is in 
another light I desire to present him to your view— in the excellence 
of his private character — his domestic virtues — as well as his public 
services. Follow me at this moment to the banks of the Ohio, a few- 
miles from the city of Cincinnatti, on a few hundred acres of land, his 
only property, in a plain looking but convenient dv/elling-house, 
engaged probably at this hour in reading, his daily practice after the 
business of the farm is disposed of ; allow me who have a short personal 
acquaintance with him, to present you to a man in the plain dress of a 
substantial farmer, about 66 years old, but looking ten years younger, 
erect in stature, and a little above the ordinary height, with a pleasing 
mild countenance and military air, his manners courteous, his disposi- 
tion frank, generous and hospitable, and a general favorite with his 
neighbors and acquaintances ; he has been engaged all day in the labors 
of his farm to support himself and a large family, a portion of which is 
composed of the widows of three of his sons, with eight children ; the 
people of Hamilton county, in which he lives, have bestowed on him 
the office of clerk of the county, the emoluments of which he appropriates 
to the support of his married children with numerous otTspring; that man 
is William Heniy Harrison, the Farmer of North Bend and the H(;ro of 
Tippecanoe and the Thames, who has served his country better and 
received less credit for it, than any other man now living in America. 
Suppose at this interview, some distinguished subject of her Brittanic 
majesty, say the Duke of Wellington were present, and should hear 
this statement: that plain dressed, modest looking farmer has fouoht 
more battles without losing one, than any other citizen of this republic ; 
he has been Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Secretary of State, Go- 
vernor, Major General and Commander, Foreign Minister, Represen- 
tative and Senator in Congress ; he has disbursed millions of the public 
money and purchased millions of acres of land for the United States, 
without appropriating one dollar or one cent to lus own use. By his 
victories over the Indians and in thirteen different treaties, he acquired 
for his country, more territory than is contained in England and Wales, 
Scotland and Ireland united. In 1811, a general confederacy of the 
Indians- against the whites, from the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, 
was projected and nearly consummated by Tecumseh, a celebrated 
Indian prophet and warrior. Gen. Harrison discovered it in time, and 



rapidly collecting what forces were at hand, he took the field and en- 
countered a superior army of Indians at Tippecanoe, conquered and 
dispersed them — thus preserving the states of Ohio and Indiana, from 
the murderous consequences of a general war with savages. 

Two years afterwards, he was beseiged at Fort Meigs in Ohio, by 
a force of British and Indians ; their repeated attacks he defeated and 
at last compelled them to retire. This success, he shortly after follow- 
ed up in a campaign planned by himself wnth consummate skill and 
foresight, and which was eminently successful, both on Lake Erie and 
by land, he forced the enemy to retreat from the American territory — 
recaptured Detroit, which had been disgracefully surrendered by Gen. 
Hull ; pursued the enemy into Canada, and at the decisive battle of 
the Thames, overcame a large force of British and Indians, compelling 
the former to surrender and killing or entirely dispersing the latter. — 
Having thus cleared the District under his command, being about one 
fourth of the Union, of its foes, flushed with victory, he tendered the 
strength of his name and his invaluable services to the baffled and dis- 
graced army of the Niagara frontier ; the Secretary at War was. there 
in person — Harrison was received by him with the scowl of official ar- 
rogance — his offer was rejected and he was ordered to Ohio, where his- 
previous gallantry had left no duty to be performed — he obeyed — but 
immediately after reaching his command, resigned his commission of 
Major General, declaring he would not eat the bread of idleness., and 
would not draw pay when he could render no service. 

What I ask, gentlemen, would have been the probable answer of 
the Wellington to such a statement of facts f Would it not have been,, 
that the British people would consider the neglect of a gallant and vic- 
torious General, a stigma on the nation ? That had any British subject 
rendered to his country half the services performed by Wm. Henry 
Harrison, he would have been raised to the Peerage — his name en- 
nobled — a splendid fortune assigned to him and his heirs forever — and 
he would have ranked second only to Royalty itself This is most true, 
gentlemen, the neglect of Gen. Harrison is a national reproach ; but it is 
not yet too late to atone for it. The genius and spirit of free institu- 
tions forbid the granting of fortune and pensions for public services \ 
but as the free will offering of a grateful people, we can elevate Wm- 
H. Harrison above royalty itself, by electing him President of fifteen 



9 

milliuns of t'reemen, by tlie- voluntary and unbouglit suffrages of a large 
majority of them. 

Gen. Harrison has declared, through his friends, that if elected, he 
will serve but one term of four years ; thus giving in his own person, 
a practical illustration of what is meant by rotation in ofRce : if the 
example is followed out in the national and state governments, and the 
incumbents of all offices except judicial, changed at stated periods, we 
may then expect a faithful discharge of the duties of each office for the 
good of the people, instead of a party ; politics will cease to be follow- 
ed as a trade, because the tenure of office will be too short to furnish 
an inducement to abandon the certainty of private emolument to obtain 
it ; office-holders will then no longer form a patrician class, into whose 
hands the honors and emoluments of the government are perpetually 
flowing without change ; they will no longer serve as a Pretorian Band, 
ready to execute the will of their political leaders, right or wrong, on 
condition that they are continued in office for life, if the party so long 
continue ; the debasing and corrupt effects in this state of the office for 
life holding system, by rotating from one office to another, had become 
so manifest and insufferable, that I am persuaded hundreds of the old 
Regency party were induced, in the end, to throw their baUots against 
their friends, as the only means of getting rid of the standing candi- 
dates and the everlasting incumbents of the party ; the signs of the 
times are indicative of the certain fall of any party, that will not es- 
tablish and carry out a well regulated system of rotation in office. 

Since the nomination, by the National Convention, has been an- 
nounced, and within a few days, President Van Buren has issued his 
annual message. He opens that message by informing the nation, 
" that although the past year has not been one of unalloyed prosperity, 
in consequence of the ravages of fire and disease, and serious embarrass- 
ments yet deranging the trade of ma7iy of our large cities, yet the 
general prosperity, which has been heretofore so bountifully bestowed 
upon us by the Author of all good, still continues to call for our warmest 
gratitude." 

Can the President be sincere, or does he mean to mock us in our 
distresses ,'' I deny that general prosperity prevails in our land ; on the 
contrary I assert, and I appeal to the experience of every man wh,o. 
hears me, for the truth of it, that nine-tenths of the industrious classes 
of the people, are suffering more in mind, means and estate, than a 



10 

creneral war of six years duration could have inflicted, save only in the 
loss of life ; produced by the wanton and rash experiments of the Pres- 
ident on the business and currency of the country, to carry out the im- 
practicable and destructive dogmas of John C. Calhoun and Thomas H. 
Benton, as a reformed system of political economy, but actually intend- 
ed by them to impair the resources and cripple the energies of that 
section of the Union, which they hate for no other provocation, than 
because the God of nature has allotted to it a finer climate and better 
harbors, a more numerous, active and laborious population, who have 
built larger cities and improved fairer lands than the south can produce^ 

History informs us, that during an almost general conflagration of 
the city of Rome, kindled by order of the Emperor Nero, whilst the 
houses of its citizens, the palaces of its nobles, and the temples of its 
gods, were crumbling into ashes beneath the devouring element, the 
tyrant merrily played on his violin ; and amidst the groans of suffering 
men and the lamentations of agonized women and children, he cooly re- 
marked to his guards, " that they would now feel what the power of 
an Emperor was." 

It must be in some such spirit, that the President discourses of the 
general prosjjerity of the nation, amidst the ruined fortunes and blasted 
prospects of thousands ; the bitter fruits of the wild theory and rash 
practice of him and his predecessor. Let him visit our principal cities, 
and behold the sad effects of stagnated commerce, bankrupt merchants, 
closed ware houses, s-heriff 's sales, empty workshops, and; their oc- 
cupants standing idle and listless at the corner of the streets ; and day 
laborers returning pennyless to their starving wives and children, to go 
supperless to bed. Then let him turn to the interior of the country and 
observe the losses sustained by the sudden depreciation in the value of 
real and personal property, and the ruinous sacrifices submitted to, when 
a sale of it must be made ; the want of confidence, the loss of credit 
and privations and disappointments, consequent on an almost total sus- 
pension in the payment of debts, arising from the want of a sufficient 
circulating medium ; and let him, if he can dream of the general pros- 
perity, and if he is honest, we must look upon him as bereft of his 
senses, and if dishonest, as the veriest hypocrite and deceiver on earth. 

In my view, gentlemen, the message is a series of incongruities, if 
not contradictions ; it speaks of general prosperity, when general dis- 
tress notoriously prevails, which the whole tenor of the message pre- 



11 

ij'Upposes ; it censures the excessive importation of merchandize — yet 
cautiously omits to recommend the only measure that can remedy the 
evil, a protective tariff of duties ; that would encourage and promote 
the substitution of American for foreign manufactures, and thus pre- 
vent the exportation of the precious metals to pay for the latter. The 
President is opposed to a national currency furnished by a National 
Bank, in bills and amounts suited to the wants of the people ; a cur- 
rency which was at all times available to its holder, in every commer- 
cial nation on earth, where the stars and stripes of the natioilal flag 
were seen at the mast head, or the commerce of the Union was desired ; 
yet he recommends a national Sub-Treasury Bank, to be made up of 
government dues paid in coin, which can only be obtained from our 
State Banks, and which must of course close them ; to be in the hands 
of officers appointed by himself and removable at his pleasure ; whose 
fidelity is to be secured by the terms of a felon's fate, as if that spectre 
could deter dishonest men from following in the footsteps of their illus- 
trious predecessors. 

As the President, gentlemen, has some grounds from past experience, 
for suspecting the integrity of his intended Sub-Treasurers, we would 
advise him to insist upon their putting on the ball and chain in advance, 
or they may avoid his lock up penalties, by a jaunt to Texas ; that 
Gretna Green of this continent, where I foresee, if the Sub-Treasury 
goes into operation, the happy alliances contracted between its officers 
and the Treasuries in their keeping, will often be solemnized for life ; 
when a Sub-Treasurer slopes off, it will no longer be said of him, G. 
T. T. gone to Texas, but that he has made a run avmy match with an 
Heiress, worth $200,000. 

And this Sub-Treasury Bank is to issue bills of exchange, when the 
President pleases, and if he pleases, for sums to suit the convenience 
of his Sub-Treasurers. He is opposed to the mixed currency of paper 
and coin, issued by our Banking institutions, and yet proposes no sub- 
stitute, but the exploded humbug of gold and silver, which he admits 
cannot be retained in the country, when he asserts that we are more 
indebted to Europeans than we can readily pay ; that our stocks are 
valueless and our coin exported by the agents of foreign houses, for the 
manufactures sold by them at auction. 

There is not, gentlemen, in the message a single proposition worthy 
of the comprehensive, e.nlightened and practical policy looked for, from 



12 

an American statesman ; its whole scope and bearing seems to be, to 
break down every business pursuit of the people, by diminishing the 
already reduced circulating medium of the country, and to depreciate 
the value of every kind of property, by making one dollar perform the 
office of ten dollars of our present mixed currency ; a result which the 
people will never sanction, unless they are greater blockheads than 1 
believe them to be. 

For nothing is Mr. Van Buren more censurable, than for connect- 
ing himself with the Fanny Wright men. Agrarians and Infidels of the 
north — the avowed enemies of all the civil and religious institutions of 
the country, and with the nullifiers of the south, the advocates of a 
separation of the southern states from the northern ; and of every mea- 
sure injurious to the commerce and industry of the north, who sup})ort 
him because he is a " northern man with southern principles" — which 
means a northern man, who lends himself to the malignants of the 
south, to " ruin the northern cities to build up those of the south." — 
When the sky falls, gentlemen, we will catch larks ; when the same event 
occurs, the nullifiers, with Mr. Van Buren for leiider, will accomplish 
our ruin; the snake is scotched, his position is known, and they 
whom he seeks to strike, will avoid his spring by maintaining the right 
distance. 

The nullifiers of the south are opposed to the protective Tariff, the 
great security against excessive importations, as the British TaritT is 
in that kingdom, an effectual security against the importation of nor- 
thern products and manufactures, because it enhances the prices of 
manufactures and imposes an unequal burthen on the south to promote 
the manufactures of the north. The fallacy of these pretences a mo- 
ment's consideration will make manifest. The Tariff operates equally 
to promote the industry of all sections of the Union, which will avaiJ 
themselves of it. Why does not the south erect manufacturing estab- 
lishments. F.xperience has shown, that in proportion to the growth of 
American manufactures, the foreign has lessened in price. Within the 
last thirty years, hats which formerly cost eight to ten dollars can now be 
purchased for four or five dollars ; so with boots and shoes, and every 
other article in common use ; in cotton fabrics the price has been reduced 
some 150 per cent. ; and I firmly believe, that the large consumption 
of southern cotton by northern manufactures, induced by the encourage- 
ment afforded by a protective Tariti, by furnishing a home market, 



13 

has had a material agency in enhancing its price in Europe, which 
otherwise, would have been reduced to its minimum price, by a com- 
bination among European buyers, which has been attempted once or 
twice within the Jast three years. 

It is clear, that the duties imposed by the Taritf laws, are paid by 
the consumers of imported goods, and they are comparatively few in 
the southern states. The state of New- York alone, with its 2,000,000 
of white citizens, consumes more imports and of course pays more du- 
ties than the people of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Ala- 
bama,' Mississippi and Tennessee united, because two-thirds of their 
population consumes few or no imports at all. It is therefore manifest, 
that the northern and middle states, in which I include Virginia and 
Kentucky and the western free states, must actually defray nine-tenths 
of the expenses of the Union, besides supplying all the men who handle 
ihe bayonets of 'the army, and the sailors who man the guns and work 
the ships of the navy. But small as is the proportion paid by the 
southern states, it is still so much saved by the other states of the 
Union, which, in maintaining a national government, vrould be com- 
pelled to pay itj'if separated from the southern states. But if the pro- 
portion now paid be so burthensome, how much greater would it rot be 
to the sfuiibem states, if they paid the whole, to carry out Mr. Cal- 
houn's notion of a, southern confederacy, with him for President. 

It is a remlritfeble fact, that even intelligent men of the southern 
states, hold lightly the advantages of belonging to a powerful nation, at 
comparatively small expense, able to protect them from foreign and 
domestic foes ; they too ^often speak freely of a probable dissolution of 
the Union, which to them would prove ruinous ; whilst northern men, 
from national attachment, shrink from the thought as sacrilege, and a 
dishonor to the memory of the great and good men who established it ; 
nor is there any hostile interests actually existing that require a sepa- 
ration of the Union to adjust ; the difference of climate and the conse- 
quent different productions, and the different pursuits of the people of 
the northern and southern states, by creating wants in one section that 
can be supplied in the other, so far from being a cause of separation, is 
certainly a bond of Union ; and if we were all cotton or wheat growers, 
or all manufacturers, we would interfere much more with each other 
than we do now. But the people of the northern states -cannot exist 
without a protective system to sustain their own industry. I have 



14 

already shown that the middle, and western, and northern states, pay 
nine-tenths of the expense of such a system, and that the south receives 
a fair equivalent for the one-fifth she actually contributes ; the north 
can therefore justly insist upon the adoption of a system of which she 
pays the expense ; but if our southern brethern are inflexible on this 
head, and to enhance the value of the productions of their slave labor, 
are determined to prostrate and crush the industrious classes of the 
north, by a continuance of the present deplorable suicidal policy of the 
government ; it is apparent that, however we might deprecate a dissolu- 
tion of the Union, the northern, and middle, and western states, would 
lose no advantages that would not be counter-balanced by a system of 
trade, founded on these cardinal principles : 

1. That the gold and silver of America, must not be exported to pay 
for the labor of foreign artizans and manufactures, but must be retained 
to foster, cherish and promote American labor and industry. 

2. That these states will trade with no people, whose government 
will not admit into its ports, the manufactures and products of America, 
on the same terms and with the same duties, that the United States 
admit theirs. 

These principles, if adopted as the rule of our commercial intercourse 
with the nations of the earth, would make the American people the 
wealthiest, as they are the most industrious and enterprising, on the 
globe. 

An adherence to the latter principle, I deem essential to the ex- 
istence of the grain growing and manufacturing states ; and will secure 
a market for their surplus products, which are now valueless in the 
ports of Great Britain, from whom we purchase millions in value of 
manufactures, the staple products of their labor ; yet unwisely permit 
that nation to exclude from hei* markets our labor ; thus making our 
money capital tributary to their labor— a system that must impoverish 
any people. It is a proof of the wonderful resources of the free states, 
that their people have been able to bear up until 1837, against the 
ruinous consequences of this policy. Up to that period, our industry 
had been promoted and sustained by the aliment of a superior national 
currency, operating to stimulate navigation and commerce to the highest 
pitch ; but since 1837, the mischievous effects of breaking down that 
currency, have developed themselves in crippling our commerce and 
navigation and diminishing our labor, and of course our resources ; the 
immense balances due to our European creditors, are producing their 



i^ 



QM 4^# 



natural effects ; payment is called for and our coin is departing with 
every packet; this state of things can be endured no longer; the peo- 
ple of the free states must combine to consume no foreign manu- 
factures, or the policy of the Government must be changed. 

In matters of trade and commerce, effecting the interest of e;u:h in- 
dividual, there should be no politics ; the people of the northern, middle 
and western states have nine-tenths of the numerical strength of the 
nation ; they have but to will it and the right principles will be adopted. 
Nor is this meant to injure in any particular, the cotton growing states ; 
I am sure, that I do but echo the sentiments of nineteen twentieths of 
the people of this state, when I assert, that any attempt to interfere with 
the domestic institutions of those states, or any invasion of their consti- 
tutional rights, would be put down by an expression of public opinion 
too decided to require the application of any other power. 

The course pursued by President Van Buren, of enlisting himself 
on the side of the visionary and impractible men of the south, and ap- 
pealing to the worst passions of the worst men for support, instead of 
commending himself to the judgment and affections of the intelligent 
and patriotic, have lost him the confidence and support of his best 
friends ; his defeat is now morally certain, and he will be succeeded by 
a great and good man, upon whose honesty and capacity we can all 
rely, and who will not fail to give to the country the repose it so much 
needs. 

For the reasons I have assigned, I pledge myself to oppose the re- 
election of Martin Van Buren — I enlist for the whole war — will you not 
also.^ In your animated countenances and warm applause, I read your 
assent. 

Here then we unfurl the standard of the Union, its broad folds ex- 
panding in the air ; its stars waving to the breeze ; on its broad can- 
vass we inscribe for our motto, " our country, our whole country" — 
" union for the sake of the Union" — under this emblem of the nation's 
independence, its pride and chivalry have often rallied to maintain its 
rights ; many a gallant spirit has triumphed in victory, and many a 
proud heart beat its last throb for honor and the country ; will you at 
this crisis withhold your aid in the same great cause, to be maintained 
through the ballot boxes .'' Perish the thought ; and perish the man, 
who when his country calls him to defend her rights or nobly sink, 
who then to duty dead, can shrink aghast, and will hold counsel with 
abject fear. 



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